MHS Resources: Manitoba Bricks and Blocks: Melita Lumber and Manufacturing Company / Melita Brick and Tile Company

In 1905, John Dobbyn established a brick yard near Melita. The octogenarian formed a joint-stock company named the Melita Lumber and Manufacturing Company, with his sons Richard John Dobbyn and Charles S. Dobbyn, along with contractors ? Johnstone and George Arthur Pope, to exploit a site with excellent brick-making clay deposits. They brought in a Winnipeg brick expert by the name of McDonald to run the yard. He had previously managed a brick yard in St. Boniface and had been in the brick business since he was a young boy. The Dobbyn yard produced its first bricks, bright red in colour, by mid-June 1905 and produced at least two more kilns of brick that summer.

Little is known about the Dobbyn yard in 1906 other than the fact that a D. Morrison of Sudbury, Ontario was now managing it. However, by the spring of 1907, Dobbyn already had an order for 1,000,000 bricks to be shipped to Regina, Saskatchewan. The plant turned out 20,000 bricks per day in 1907 and had one more additional order for 500,000 bricks by late May. In 1909, Ted Skyed became the yard foreman and business for Dobbyn was good until the clay bed was exhausted in 1910.

Some of the structures made with bricks made at this brickyard included:

Building	Location	Year	Status
Odd Fellows Hall	111 Main Street, Melita	1907
Melita Winter Vault	Municipality of Two Borders	1908

Sources:

Our First Century: Town of Melita and Municipality of Arthur by Melita-Arthur History Committee, 1983, page 207.

Manitoba Brick Yards by Randy Rostecki, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch Report, May 2010.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 3 March 2023

Manitoba Bricks and Blocks A history of the manufacture of bricks and concrete blocks in Manitoba, based on research by Randy Rostecki for the Manitoba Historic Resources Branch and supplemented by information compiled by Gordon Goldsborough of the Manitoba Historical Society. . Bricks | Blocks | People | Glossary We thank Hugh Arklie, Gordon McDiarmid, and Heather Bertnick for their help in the development of this online guide. Financial support of the Thomas Sill Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. Additional information was provided by Ina Bramadat, David Butterfield, Neil Christoffersen, Frank Korvemaker, Ed Ledohowski, Ken Storie, Lynette Stow, and Tracey Winthrop-Meyers. © 2010-2020 Randy Rostecki, Manitoba Historic Resources Branch, Gordon Goldsborough, and Manitoba Historical Society. All rights reserved.